2013-14 Test Scores Show Gains
New York State entered the 2013-14 school year—the second year of the Common Core era—with a pointed awareness of the challenges revealed by the 2012-13 test scores. The good news is that test scores released yesterday show progress across the board toward the goal of college and career readiness for all students in both Math […]
IBO Admits Flawed Finding on Charter School SpEd Attrition
The New York City Independent Budget Office now has egg on its face after its shocking finding – 80% attrition among charter school kindergarteners in special education! – turned out to be inaccurate. Chalkbeat New York has the details: A widely publicized statistic showing that charter schools do a poor job of retaining their special […]
A Rare Moment of Unanimity
Back in 2008, when Senator Obama was running against Senator McCain, something unusual happened in the final minutes of their third and very contentious, partisan debate. They agreed on something: charter schools were a good thing. They agreed on this one issue because charter schools when done right (as in NYC) are a good thing. […]
New IBO Study: Charter Students Stick Around
A new report from the NYC Independent Budget Office found that student attrition rates in charter schools are lower across nearly every student subgroup — with the one exception, which contradicts previous research, being calculated from a tiny sample. The IBO study followed the kindergarten class of 2008-09 at 53 charter schools and 116 district […]
The ABCs of NYC Charters
The NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE) released its 2012-13 Progress Reports for all public and charter schools*. Charter schools continue to earn a higher distribution of A and B grades than district schools; 69% of charter schools scored an A or B grade over 63% for the district. Learn About Tableau This achievement is […]
School Choice Structure is Key to Success
James Merriman How can we improve school choice in New York City? The Education Funders Research Initiative asked a range of experts, and Charter Center CEO James Merriman shared his thoughts. They’re reproduced below with permission. New York City has a rich history of school choice, and the expansion of choice in recent years has […]
Hiding the Bill for Teacher Pensions
Michael Regnier The debate about charter school funding was split wide open last week when a new study found that charter schools receive much less public support per pupil, when accounting for the full value of retirement promises to district school teachers. The valuation matters because the City is not saving enough for today’s workers’ […]
NYC Council Education Committee Hearing
The New York City Council Education Committee held a hearing October 2, to consider three important resolutions, Res. 1263-2012, Res. 1395-2012 and Res. 1906-2012, regarding school utilization. The resolutions call for a moratorium on school closings and co-locations for a period of at least a year, require CEC approval for school co-locations, and create new […]
Mainstream Appeal
Michael Regnier A rigorous new study of charter elementary schools has a startling implication: mainstream general education classrooms at NYC charter schools contain many students who, statistically, would have been assigned to special education had they attended district schools. Charter school educators have been saying this for years, and the data consistently shows that NYC […]
Scores and Rumors of Scores
Michael Regnier “It ain’t what people don’t know that hurts them. It’s what they know that ain’t so.” Whoever said that didn’t know the charter school debate.* Especially after the release of state test scores, we actually have both problems. Consider the sticky issue of student enrollment patterns. In order to draw conclusions about a […]
